COMPARE AND CONTRAST the countries that use the National Health Insurance Plan in their ability to expand health coverage across their population; provide the health services offered; and provide affordable care for both the people (pro-poor reform) and the country (financial solvency and sustainability)

THE NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN
August 12, 2019 Off All,

This system has elements of both Beveridge and Bismarck. It uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into. Since there’s no need for marketing, no financial motive to deny claims and no profit, these universal insurance programs tend to be cheaper and much simpler administratively than American-style for-profit insurance. The single payer tends to have considerable market power to negotiate for lower prices; Canada’s system, for example, has negotiated such low prices from pharmaceutical companies that Americans have spurned their own drug stores to buy pills north of the border. National Health Insurance plans also control costs by limiting the medical services they will pay for, or by making patients wait to be treated. The classic NHI system is found in Canada, but some newly industrialized countries — Taiwan and South Korea, for example — have also adopted the NHI model. Using the ideas of: • Progressive Universalism: expanding coverage while ensuring that the poor and vulnerable are not left behind; • Strategic Purchasing: expanding the statutory benefits package and developing incentives for its effective delivery by health-care providers; • Raising revenues to finance health care in fiscally sustainable ways; • Improving the availability and quality of health-care providers; and, • Strengthening accountability to ensure the fulfillment of promises made between citizens, governments and health institutions, COMPARE AND CONTRAST the countries that use the National Health Insurance Plan in their ability to expand health coverage across their population; provide the health services offered; and provide affordable care for both the people (pro-poor reform) and the country (financial solvency and sustainability)